Check Out Our Podcast: The Verdict
What if your most painful moments were shaping someone else’s future, even generations down the line? In part five of our conversation with Dr. Lowell Davis, the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington, we reflect on family, faith, and the invisible hands that guide our lives.
Daivs shares powerful stories of loss, resilience, and what it meant to watch his mother overcome segregation-era limitations to pave a path that would lead her son into university leadership. He strongly believes people are placed in our lives because of an aunt who was the heart of the family, to students and strangers who shaped his life’s calling, With honesty, vulnerability, and deep hope, he reminds us that helping others — especially when we don’t have to — may be the most sacred thing we ever do.
Here’s what we discuss in this episode:
🕊️ How a mother’s sacrifice changed the future for her family
📚 The power of generational breakthrough through education
💔 Processing the sudden loss of a beloved aunt
🌟 Why faith means seeing beyond what we can explain
🙌 Giving back with no strings attached — just heart
0:00 – God’s role in his life
3:23 – Important people who provided support
6:14 – Finding sources of strength
8:20 – Finding faith during tragedy
11:33 – His view of Heaven
About our guest: https://resources.uta.edu/student-affairs/vice-president.php
Faith, religion, god, Lowell davis, disabilities, catastrophic injuries, services, north Carolina, family, support system
Learn more about how Speaks Law Firm can help you: https://www.speakslaw.com/
Schedule your FREE case review: https://www.speakslaw.com/our-team/r-clarke-speaks/#contactFormTarget
Find us on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3R40YMP
00:00
I'm Clark, speaks the catastrophic injury. Lawyer. Welcome to the verdict. This is catastrophic comeback.
00:08
So it sounds like to what you're saying is, and we've heard this from other people before, is it's not that God insulates people who are Christians or people who have faith from negative things that the negative things are in bad things are a part of life. They're gonna have to say, he walks with you through those times he he will walk with you. And sometimes they carry you and stand in the gap there. What do you mean when you say stand in the gap? There are things that I just cannot explain.
00:40
And there is, I just say, there's this gap there, and I feel like that God is the bridge that is taking me over, that is helping me to get to where I need to be. Can you give me an example? I guess I finished my PhD and was very young, and I took this job at the University of Alabama, and I told you, making $41,000 a year, and there was someone who said, This guy's talented, like, I'm gonna, I'm
01:13
gonna invest some resources at him, and expanded my portfolio, but believed in me,
01:21
and it's like he came out of nowhere, like, I don't know where to help, like, I'm
01:26
an assistant director, you know, at a university that had 30,000 32,000 students at that time, and probably a ton of administrators, a ton of administrators who said, Hey, I'm gonna invest in this person, and I'm going to
01:43
make sure that that try to support this person. I mean, he came to my mother's funeral.
01:50
I can't explain that. Like I just I can't knowing from where I come from
01:59
and what has happened. Sometimes I feel like God will send someone, put them in your life, to stand in that gap, you know, to stand in that space that you don't understand how you're gonna get over there, or how you're gonna make it. But it happens. And going back to what we talked about earlier, to me, those are student affairs professionals. You have a person who's had an injury or something has happened, there's someone who's gonna stand in the gap for you to get you to where you need to be, or where you should be, or where you want to be. I had applied for jobs before I became the vice chancellor of Student Affairs at UNC W and I wasn't successful. I applied for a couple of jobs that I turned down. I did think it was the right move for me, but I just could not explain just some things that have happened to me
02:51
in my life, and there are times when I felt the odds were stacked against me, but I was still able to
03:00
be successful and to do things, and I cannot explain it when I watch the news and I see things that happen, when I look at what has happened in My life,
03:17
I just
03:21
I can't explain it well. So when you describe that, it makes me think that that's that's exactly what we are trying to do with this program. And you know, in what we do, we want to be there for people in their darkest moments to help them recover from catastrophic accidents and the catastrophic injuries, mentally, physically and emotionally. And so as you describe what you're describing, it makes me think of times in my own life where in my, you know, most difficult situations somebody which would appear, yeah, and and whether that was First my mother,
03:58
then my brother, who has been a phenomenal example for me, personally, and teaching me, you know, and showing me not teaching me, but showing me and teaching me how how to be a person and how to be a father and how to be a brother and how to be a son and how to be a person of faith in a world that sometimes discounts that and undervalues that had a step grandfather that showed up out of nowhere and became like a father figure to me when my father wasn't around growing up. And I think about how important and and shaping that, what life shaping that was I had admit I had a particular administrative person at my university, Dean spear, who was exactly those things for me and really helped, helped me focus and and and figure out what I was going to do going forward, and find my calling and find my purpose, so I know exactly what you mean. And I'll say walking a Christian walk is not easy. It is not easy in 2023
04:56
for sure.
04:59
But I am a person.
05:00
Person who just relies on my faith like I have to when there are things that happen in my life and I need someone to turn to.
05:10
That is where I turn to, if nothing else, to at least help me to get past or through something well. So it's funny, you say that I'm always hesitant to share my faith, right? This is not, this has been a part of the show because I think it potentially could be helpful for people. But I always sort of hesitate to share my faith because I'm like, Look, I'm flawed, man. I, you know, I've, I will swear sometimes I don't. I'm not perfect. I get, you know, angry at insurance adjusters and all this and and, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to do those things, think those things, say those things, and then have a negative, you know, and then, and then be a negative reflection of God, because, because of, because of that. But I do feel like it's important to share with people, you know, I'm not trying to say that I'm a model Christian or whatever, but I do. The reason this is important, I think, is because whereas we're not, I'm not trying to push my faith on anybody else's. It has been a source of strength for me in some really difficult times, and I feel like it can be a source of strength for other people in those same kinds of times. Absolutely, we have this phrase that kind of, I've heard in my church, that we all fall short of the glory, and we do, you know, we, we are not perfect individuals. I had an opportunity to visit Israel and go to Jerusalem and Bethlehem and
06:32
and to
06:34
see what I'd read in books, to see where, you know, Christ was born, to see where they crucified Christ and took him down off the cross and washed his body to witness that it's one thing to read it in a book, and it's one thing to kind of, you know, I have this PhD, and so intellectually, my mind says something else but to go and just see it. And there was a different feeling about it. That's exactly what I was going to ask you. Was there a did you, did you feel anything when you were in those places? There was a different feeling, like, I it's very interesting, you know, Bethlehem and Jerusalem and went to dead, see, those places are about, I would say, 40 kilometers from Tel Aviv, which is, you know, a huge city in Israel.
07:25
But to be able to place my hand in what we know is kind of the manger of where Jesus Christ was born, just has a different meaning. To
07:35
be able to look at this location where I've read about that they hung this person on the cross who we know was kind of perfect
07:45
and killed him, and it just it had a different meaning. My pastor in Dallas always talks about the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego down in a fiery furnace, and says that when you have something going on, you know, you may think you're in a fiery furnace, but isn't it amazing how God just got in the middle of all that? He got in the middle of this furnace. And, you know, Devil thought that everything was like, I'd taken these people out, but he got in the middle of all that, and it's just like, Wait, something is Wait, okay. These people gonna be okay. So, so when you describe your friend Mary, was it
08:25
who the who had cancer and she died?
08:28
Oh, April, April, I'm sorry, April, April with three, three kids, you know? Like, there's some things I can understand, you know? I can understand we have free will. I can understand that we're we have choices, and sometimes those choices have consequences. But then, when you take, you know Mary, and she's got three kids, you know, and she just dies, how do you find, how can we, how can you find, you know, God and Christ in in that situation, you know,
08:57
you know, I just, I have to say that there is someone out there who has a that God has a reason for doing, why he is, why he decided to take this young woman from us, and Heaven needs angels too.
09:16
I ended up going to a student from UNC W's funeral, maybe in the fall semester, or maybe it was last year I came. Last year, I can't remember, and his mother asked me to speak. And anyone who knows me knows I talk about my mother all the time, and I said
09:32
in the church that you know, took my mother away from me when I was young, I said, but she's probably up in heaven trying to teach your son something right now, because that's just who she is. And so he may have taken this woman from us God, and she is probably upstairs right now in heaven being a mother of someone else, being as cured and as encouraging her husband texts me all the time and says that as I'm checking in with him and.
10:00
Says that he, she always told him be great.
10:04
And so she's probably, she's not probably She's upstairs in heaven right now telling someone be great.
10:12
So I can really appreciate the image of of that. And when you describe that, it makes me think that, wow, they know that
10:22
something good can come of this situation, and that it's not so much that God caused it, or God is, you know, wasn't there, but God was there for these three is, is there for these three kids, and for her husband, going forward, he can be a resource for them. He can be in the fire, like you said, with with those figures from the Bible, or he can and and he can help us through those times of tough, tough times. There's this song by Marvin Sapp that says, Never would have made it. He says, I'm stronger, I'm wiser, I'm better, much better, when I look back over my life and all that he's brought me through, I can't help, I believe he says I can't help but to think about you, I never would have made it. And so I think about the things that have happened to me in my life, and I feel like I'm stronger and I'm wiser and I'm better because of those things, and I'm still here, and
11:23
he does not put more on us, and we can bear a deal with it, but we have to, we have to have faith and know that things are going to get better. So when you when you think about April, or you think about your mother, and when you've described kind of what you envision heaven to be. And none of us, I guess, really knows but, but you seem to have a very clear vision in your mind for what that dynamic looks like. Do
11:53
you feel like sharing that with us? You know, it was after I it was really kind of dramatic after I buried my mom, the funeral home that kind of took care of her arrangements, sent me something over Christmas. I was like, why am I getting something from the funeral home? Like it's Christmas, but there was a poem that says, I'm spending a Christmas with Jesus Christ this year.
12:19
And every time that I have a friend that loses someone, I print that poem out and I mail it to them around Christmas, and it talks about that. You know, I'm up here, and I'm singing a Christmas songs, and I'm doing all of the things that you would expect people to do around Christmas. I'm just doing it in heaven. And so that has kind of given me a kind of piece of, at least, thinking about what heaven may,
12:49
may look like. And my I feel like my grandparents are there, and so I think about their interactions when they were here on Earth. They're probably doing the same thing they were doing there. You know, they're talking and laughing and having a good time, and they are looking back on me and kind of and my sister and others, and encouraging us and possibly maneuvering and moving some things out of the way that we may not kind of know or realize. I went to a cousin's wedding a while back, and they were just talking about,
13:22
they were talking about my mother, and they said she was the first, and my mother's from a small town, and she was the oldest grandchild out of maybe like five or six different kids, and they all had like eight or nine kids, but she was first one to go to college, you know, from that particular community, on that side of the family and just kind of set a road map. And she's lost some of her first cousins since then. I'm sure she had some sisters that died before her. Her sisters were there waiting on her because she was the oldest. So it's kind of like, well, you protected us, and so now we're here to welcome you and protect you. I think that that's what that's what they did, and they are. You know, the Bible says they're they're singing. My mother was not a singer. I'm not sure I am too, but I think they're there,
14:10
enjoying life pain free, and working on behalf of others. Thanks for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We'll see you next time you.
00:00
I'm Clark, speaks the catastrophic injury. Lawyer. Welcome to the verdict. This is catastrophic comeback.
00:08
So it sounds like to what you're saying is, and we've heard this from other people before, is it's not that God insulates people who are Christians or people who have faith from negative things that the negative things are in bad things are a part of life. They're gonna have to say, he walks with you through those times he he will walk with you. And sometimes they carry you and stand in the gap there. What do you mean when you say stand in the gap? There are things that I just cannot explain.
00:40
And there is, I just say, there's this gap there, and I feel like that God is the bridge that is taking me over, that is helping me to get to where I need to be. Can you give me an example? I guess I finished my PhD and was very young, and I took this job at the University of Alabama, and I told you, making $41,000 a year, and there was someone who said, This guy's talented, like, I'm gonna, I'm
01:13
gonna invest some resources at him, and expanded my portfolio, but believed in me,
01:21
and it's like he came out of nowhere, like, I don't know where to help, like, I'm
01:26
an assistant director, you know, at a university that had 30,000 32,000 students at that time, and probably a ton of administrators, a ton of administrators who said, Hey, I'm gonna invest in this person, and I'm going to
01:43
make sure that that try to support this person. I mean, he came to my mother's funeral.
01:50
I can't explain that. Like I just I can't knowing from where I come from
01:59
and what has happened. Sometimes I feel like God will send someone, put them in your life, to stand in that gap, you know, to stand in that space that you don't understand how you're gonna get over there, or how you're gonna make it. But it happens. And going back to what we talked about earlier, to me, those are student affairs professionals. You have a person who's had an injury or something has happened, there's someone who's gonna stand in the gap for you to get you to where you need to be, or where you should be, or where you want to be. I had applied for jobs before I became the vice chancellor of Student Affairs at UNC W and I wasn't successful. I applied for a couple of jobs that I turned down. I did think it was the right move for me, but I just could not explain just some things that have happened to me
02:51
in my life, and there are times when I felt the odds were stacked against me, but I was still able to
03:00
be successful and to do things, and I cannot explain it when I watch the news and I see things that happen, when I look at what has happened in My life,
03:17
I just
03:21
I can't explain it well. So when you describe that, it makes me think that that's that's exactly what we are trying to do with this program. And you know, in what we do, we want to be there for people in their darkest moments to help them recover from catastrophic accidents and the catastrophic injuries, mentally, physically and emotionally. And so as you describe what you're describing, it makes me think of times in my own life where in my, you know, most difficult situations somebody which would appear, yeah, and and whether that was First my mother,
03:58
then my brother, who has been a phenomenal example for me, personally, and teaching me, you know, and showing me not teaching me, but showing me and teaching me how how to be a person and how to be a father and how to be a brother and how to be a son and how to be a person of faith in a world that sometimes discounts that and undervalues that had a step grandfather that showed up out of nowhere and became like a father figure to me when my father wasn't around growing up. And I think about how important and and shaping that, what life shaping that was I had admit I had a particular administrative person at my university, Dean spear, who was exactly those things for me and really helped, helped me focus and and and figure out what I was going to do going forward, and find my calling and find my purpose, so I know exactly what you mean. And I'll say walking a Christian walk is not easy. It is not easy in 2023
04:56
for sure.
04:59
But I am a person.
05:00
Person who just relies on my faith like I have to when there are things that happen in my life and I need someone to turn to.
05:10
That is where I turn to, if nothing else, to at least help me to get past or through something well. So it's funny, you say that I'm always hesitant to share my faith, right? This is not, this has been a part of the show because I think it potentially could be helpful for people. But I always sort of hesitate to share my faith because I'm like, Look, I'm flawed, man. I, you know, I've, I will swear sometimes I don't. I'm not perfect. I get, you know, angry at insurance adjusters and all this and and, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to do those things, think those things, say those things, and then have a negative, you know, and then, and then be a negative reflection of God, because, because of, because of that. But I do feel like it's important to share with people, you know, I'm not trying to say that I'm a model Christian or whatever, but I do. The reason this is important, I think, is because whereas we're not, I'm not trying to push my faith on anybody else's. It has been a source of strength for me in some really difficult times, and I feel like it can be a source of strength for other people in those same kinds of times. Absolutely, we have this phrase that kind of, I've heard in my church, that we all fall short of the glory, and we do, you know, we, we are not perfect individuals. I had an opportunity to visit Israel and go to Jerusalem and Bethlehem and
06:32
and to
06:34
see what I'd read in books, to see where, you know, Christ was born, to see where they crucified Christ and took him down off the cross and washed his body to witness that it's one thing to read it in a book, and it's one thing to kind of, you know, I have this PhD, and so intellectually, my mind says something else but to go and just see it. And there was a different feeling about it. That's exactly what I was going to ask you. Was there a did you, did you feel anything when you were in those places? There was a different feeling, like, I it's very interesting, you know, Bethlehem and Jerusalem and went to dead, see, those places are about, I would say, 40 kilometers from Tel Aviv, which is, you know, a huge city in Israel.
07:25
But to be able to place my hand in what we know is kind of the manger of where Jesus Christ was born, just has a different meaning. To
07:35
be able to look at this location where I've read about that they hung this person on the cross who we know was kind of perfect
07:45
and killed him, and it just it had a different meaning. My pastor in Dallas always talks about the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego down in a fiery furnace, and says that when you have something going on, you know, you may think you're in a fiery furnace, but isn't it amazing how God just got in the middle of all that? He got in the middle of this furnace. And, you know, Devil thought that everything was like, I'd taken these people out, but he got in the middle of all that, and it's just like, Wait, something is Wait, okay. These people gonna be okay. So, so when you describe your friend Mary, was it
08:25
who the who had cancer and she died?
08:28
Oh, April, April, I'm sorry, April, April with three, three kids, you know? Like, there's some things I can understand, you know? I can understand we have free will. I can understand that we're we have choices, and sometimes those choices have consequences. But then, when you take, you know Mary, and she's got three kids, you know, and she just dies, how do you find, how can we, how can you find, you know, God and Christ in in that situation, you know,
08:57
you know, I just, I have to say that there is someone out there who has a that God has a reason for doing, why he is, why he decided to take this young woman from us, and Heaven needs angels too.
09:16
I ended up going to a student from UNC W's funeral, maybe in the fall semester, or maybe it was last year I came. Last year, I can't remember, and his mother asked me to speak. And anyone who knows me knows I talk about my mother all the time, and I said
09:32
in the church that you know, took my mother away from me when I was young, I said, but she's probably up in heaven trying to teach your son something right now, because that's just who she is. And so he may have taken this woman from us God, and she is probably upstairs right now in heaven being a mother of someone else, being as cured and as encouraging her husband texts me all the time and says that as I'm checking in with him and.
10:00
Says that he, she always told him be great.
10:04
And so she's probably, she's not probably She's upstairs in heaven right now telling someone be great.
10:12
So I can really appreciate the image of of that. And when you describe that, it makes me think that, wow, they know that
10:22
something good can come of this situation, and that it's not so much that God caused it, or God is, you know, wasn't there, but God was there for these three is, is there for these three kids, and for her husband, going forward, he can be a resource for them. He can be in the fire, like you said, with with those figures from the Bible, or he can and and he can help us through those times of tough, tough times. There's this song by Marvin Sapp that says, Never would have made it. He says, I'm stronger, I'm wiser, I'm better, much better, when I look back over my life and all that he's brought me through, I can't help, I believe he says I can't help but to think about you, I never would have made it. And so I think about the things that have happened to me in my life, and I feel like I'm stronger and I'm wiser and I'm better because of those things, and I'm still here, and
11:23
he does not put more on us, and we can bear a deal with it, but we have to, we have to have faith and know that things are going to get better. So when you when you think about April, or you think about your mother, and when you've described kind of what you envision heaven to be. And none of us, I guess, really knows but, but you seem to have a very clear vision in your mind for what that dynamic looks like. Do
11:53
you feel like sharing that with us? You know, it was after I it was really kind of dramatic after I buried my mom, the funeral home that kind of took care of her arrangements, sent me something over Christmas. I was like, why am I getting something from the funeral home? Like it's Christmas, but there was a poem that says, I'm spending a Christmas with Jesus Christ this year.
12:19
And every time that I have a friend that loses someone, I print that poem out and I mail it to them around Christmas, and it talks about that. You know, I'm up here, and I'm singing a Christmas songs, and I'm doing all of the things that you would expect people to do around Christmas. I'm just doing it in heaven. And so that has kind of given me a kind of piece of, at least, thinking about what heaven may,
12:49
may look like. And my I feel like my grandparents are there, and so I think about their interactions when they were here on Earth. They're probably doing the same thing they were doing there. You know, they're talking and laughing and having a good time, and they are looking back on me and kind of and my sister and others, and encouraging us and possibly maneuvering and moving some things out of the way that we may not kind of know or realize. I went to a cousin's wedding a while back, and they were just talking about,
13:22
they were talking about my mother, and they said she was the first, and my mother's from a small town, and she was the oldest grandchild out of maybe like five or six different kids, and they all had like eight or nine kids, but she was first one to go to college, you know, from that particular community, on that side of the family and just kind of set a road map. And she's lost some of her first cousins since then. I'm sure she had some sisters that died before her. Her sisters were there waiting on her because she was the oldest. So it's kind of like, well, you protected us, and so now we're here to welcome you and protect you. I think that that's what that's what they did, and they are. You know, the Bible says they're they're singing. My mother was not a singer. I'm not sure I am too, but I think they're there,
14:10
enjoying life pain free, and working on behalf of others. Thanks for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We'll see you next time you.
